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Lawmakers in Missouri want to consider bringing back medical-liability limits that the state Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional. The overturned law had placed a $350,000 limit on noneconomic damages in medical-malpractice lawsuits.

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A law in Florida that limits noneconomic damages in medical-malpractice lawsuits to $1 million is unconstitutional, according to the state Supreme Court. "The statutory cap on wrongful death non-economic damages does not bear a rational relationship to the stated purpose that the cap is purported to address, the alleged medical malpractice insurance crisis in Florida," the court said in its ruling.

A bill aimed at reviving a $350,000 limit on noneconomic damages in medical-malpractice lawsuits in Missouri has received initial approval from the state House. The state Supreme Court ruled last year that the law that had instituted the cap ran afoul of the state Constitution.

The Missouri House has given preliminary approval to legislation to revive a $350,000 cap on damages in medical-malpractice lawsuits. The bill excludes provisions of a measure passed last year that were ruled to be unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.

Physicians in Georgia are discussing whether to pursue a $350,000 limit on medical-malpractice noneconomic damages through a state constitutional amendment or to support a system similar to the no-fault model used to settle workers' compensation claims. "The [state's] medical malpractice system is incredibly inefficient, and the money actually goes to others in the system and not patients," Jackson Healthcare Solutions CEO Richard Jackson said.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the $350,000 limit on noneconomic damages in medical-malpractice lawsuits is unconstitutional when it upheld a lower court's $900,000 award decision on a malpractice case filed against Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery. The surgery clinic challenged the award verdict, saying it violated the state's tort-reform law, but the high court ruled that "the caps infringe on a party's constitutional right to a jury determination as to non-economic damages."